


Five Steps on the Way Down

by Hagar



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Dark, Ficlet, Gen, Loss of Identity, five things, seasons 1-4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-18 10:20:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1424884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dying in slow motion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Steps on the Way Down

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by bessemerprocess and Sailor Sol.

[1]

It takes an unknown number of punches before Nathan realizes that he doesn’t feel it where his fists hit Duke. He should; he’s hitting Duke hard enough to break skin, hard enough that bright red is already rising where Duke is going to bruise, where _Nathan_ is.

He’s dizzy and his ears are buzzing even before Duke’s next hit connects.

[2]

It takes him a moment to realize it’s not yet another one of the tricks his brain plays on him, a result of the chronic absence of one of his senses, and that he really did feel Audrey’s lips against his skin.

It feels like falling. It feels like floating. It feels as if the entire world is dizzy and blurry as Nathan turns around, and only Audrey is in perfect focus.

It feels as if she’s the only real thing. He knows it’s not true, but he can’t shake off the belief anyway.

[3]

His father is not his father. His father _was_ not his father, because his father is dead. Either. Both. It’s easier to think about that, to focus on the anger - even if the anger makes it feel as if there’s nothing more he wants in the world than the feel of his fist crashing against a solid wall - because it’s easier to think about having been lied to.

He’s not entirely surprised that the Chief was keeping secrets, or anyone that the Chief associated with was, for that matter. If the Troubles taught him nothing else, they taught him that Haven keeps its secrets and likewise its people. What Nathan doesn’t know is what to make of his own mind keeping its secret, doesn’t know what he can believe.

Not being able to trust his body should have been enough. Not being able to trust his own mind is such an excessive cruelty, and such a petty one.

[4]

_Keep it together_ is what the father who mattered said, _Keep it together_ is what he died for, and _Keep it together_ is what Nathan is failing to do as the Reverend grows more and more confident and out of control, as the Troubled band together against the threat Nathan is failing to protect them from, and as everything else in town suffers from the drain of containing the Troubles.

What is he good for, anyway, if he can’t keep Haven together?

If Nathan let himself, he’d think that the name _Wournos_ burns like a mask.

[5]

If he’s honest with himself - and honesty only comes more than six months later, when Duke throws it in his face that “The only people you seem to protect is yourselves” - he’d stopped trying to protect Haven, and all he was trying to protect is Audrey.

He couldn’t protect Audrey either.

Can’t, because how do you protect a woman you don’t even know from herself?


End file.
